1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disk drive unit having a mechanism for loading a disk cartridge which houses a disk-shaped recording medium on the device at a predetermined position thereof and ejecting the loaded disk cartridge from the device as well.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical disk device uses an optical disk or a magneto-optic disk as a recording medium. The device uses the optical disk or magneto-optic disk (which is simply referred to as optical disk hereinafter) in a state wherein the optical disk is housed in a disk cartridge so that the optical disk can be conveniently exchanged.
Such a medium interchangeable optical disk device comprises a loading mechanism and an ejection mechanism for exchanging the disk cartridge, which forms many opening portions through which the inside of the device communicates with the outside of the device on the housing or chassis of the device so that the outer air is freely introduced into the device.
Accordingly, dusts or other particles included in the air stick to the optical parts assembled in the pickup device, which disturbs the wave-form of the optical signal, which lowers the reliability of the signal and causes the data error.
In order to prevent the outer air from entering into the optical disk device, it may be ideal to completely enclose the optical disk device.
However, in accordance with the ejection mechanism of the related art, to set the ejection mechanism as the initial state thereof, before the operation of the optical disk device, an eject pin has to be moved to a predetermined initial position by manually pressing an eject button, for instance. For this purpose, the chassis of the optical disk drive unit of the related art has a longitudinal opening formed therein corresponding to the moving range of the eject pin, which involves in the problem of entrance of outer air into the device through the opening.
Also, the movement of the eject pin along the longitudinal opening causes to generate dusts which are introduced into the device and attached to parts installed in the device.